Ballast cleaning apparatus



Jan.31,1939.' QA ILL 2,145,763

BALLAST CLEAN ING APPARATUS Filed Dec. 16, 1956 I s Sheets-She a 1 i flharlexlla'ill.

Jan. 31, 1939. c. A. GILL BALLAST CLEANING APPARATUS Filed Dec. 16, 1936 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 nwzwA-azz;

Jan. 31, 1939. c, A, GILL I v BALLAST CLEANING APPARATUS Filed Dec. 16, 1956 3 Sheets-Sheet 5 Patented Jan. 31, 1939 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE BALLAST CLEANING APPARATUS Charles A. Gill, Reading, Pa. Application December 16, 1936, Serial No. 116,174

7 Claims.

1 The invention relates to ballast cleaning and of way, a railway car.

has. as an object the provision of a selfpropelled plant to remove ballast from the right of way,

screen it, return the cleaned stone to the right and to load the dirt screened out. upon It is a further object of the invention to provide a device of the class described having the excavating apparatus adjustable not only for height but for overall width in such a manner Q that it may be retracted from tie-end clearing to a position in which it will not extend beyond the outline of the usual railway car.

I Itis a further object of the invention to provide an excavator and power plant for driving of the same upon a platform movable for the purpose above referred to, and a drive for the car upon'which the device is mounted operable from the said movable power plant.

" Further objects of the invention will appear from the following description when read in connection with the accompanying drawings showing an illustrative embodiment of the invention,

and wherein: a Figure l-is a perspective view of the excavating and drive mechanism of the invention;

Fig. 2 is a transverse vertical section online 2-2 of Figure 1;

. Fig. 3 is a plan View of the screen end of the car upon an enlarged scale;

Fig. 4 is a vertical section on broken line 4-4 Fig. 5 is a detail vertical section on line 5-5 of Fig. 3;

Fig. 6 is a detail transverse section on line 66 ofFigy3; and Fig. '7 is a detail transverse section on line of Fig. 6.

,As shown in Figure 1 the device is'mounted' upon a railway car I having wheels ll, one pair of; which is arranged to be driven through bevel gears l2, vertical shaft l3, bevel gear'l4, which latter coacts with shiftable bevel gears l5,

l Gunder control of a sliding collar I! by manipulation of which the car may be driven in either direction orthe gears maybe both thrown out of -mesh' to allow the car to remain stationary while the plant is operative.

. To excavate and elevate ballast preferably from a point just outside of the ends of the railway 'ties, there is shown an excavating and elevating bucket conveyor 18 mounted upon a frame l9 pivotally supported upon an axis 20 adjacent the center of its length upon. a movable platform 2|. The platform 2| is shown as mounted upon wheels or rollers 22 which travel upon tracks 23, only one of which is shown in the drawings, which tracks extend transversely of the railway car I 0.

To secure transverse adjustment of the platform 2|, there is shown a rack bar 24 fastened upon the floor of the car cooperating with a pinion 25 mounted upon a vertical shaft 26 driven by means of reversible pawl 21 through a hand lever .28.

To adjust the excavating-end of the conveyor, the same is shown as supported by a bail 29 hanging from a link 30 carried by a block 3| having a screwthreaded opening engaging a screw 32 operable by a Windlass head 33. By revolution of the head 33, the bucket may be adjusted for depth of cut or may be raised to an inoperative position for the purpose of retracting the conveyor l9 into a recess 34 in an edge of the floor of the car by means of movement of the platform 21. The width of the excavator l9 and the depth of the recess 34 are preferably such that when the excavator is retracted into the recess its outer portion will not project beyond the usual outline of the movable railway equipment.

To drive the excavator [9, there is shown diagrammatically a power plant 34 desirably in the form of an internal combustion engine operating to drive through a train of gears 36, 31, 38, and 39, the latter working upon a shaft passing through a sleeve 40 upon which the excavator is pivotally mounted to drive a sprocket wheel 4|, which latter throughchain 42 drives one of they rollers about which the excavator travels, preferably the upper, through sprocket 43, as shown.

By this arrangement it will be seen that the axis of the shaft driving the sprocket 4| is coaxial with the sleeve upon which the excavator is pivoted.

The elevating conveyor is shown as delivering to a chute 44 leading to a screen 45 mounted for shaking movement as upon rollers 46, the ballast which does not pass through the screen 45 falling to a chute 41 delivering at 48 to be returned to the track.

It will be obvious that in operation the mechanism shown in Figure 1 will be traveling toward the left of said figure.

To cause shaking movement of screen 45, link 49 is shown connecting to the frame of the screen and to a pin 50 carried by a disk 5| mounted upon a shaft 52 supported in bearings 53, 54 fixedly mounted upon the floor of the car I0. 55

To drive the shaft 52 there is shown a pulley 55 feathered upon the shaft 52 and caused to slide upon the shaft with movement of the platform 2! by means of the posts 55, 51 each having a projecting portion 58 adapted to partially surround the shaft to take the pull of the belt 59 and to preserve the alignment of the pulley 55 With the pulley 69 mounted upon shaft 6| driven by gear 38 from the power plant 35.

To drive the shaft 62 operating the gears l5 and it, there is shown a pulley 63 driven by a belt 6% from pulley 65 on shaft 62 and driving the shaft 62 through a transverse shaft 65 and worm and wheel gearing 51.

The sleeve ll may be manually controlled through a link 68 by connections, not shown, extending to the operative positions adjacent or upon the platform 2|. 1

To receive the dirt passing through the screen 2-5, there is shown below the said screen a hopper 69 delivering to a screw conveyor 10 which, as shown in Figure 4, passes transversely and is upwardly inclined to deliver to a second screw conveyor l l, which latter screw conveyor elevates the dirt received from the conveyor 10 and delivers the same to hopper 12 preferably mounted upon an adjacent car coupled in use to the car Ii).

The hopper 12 is shown delivering to a third screw conveyor 13 extending lengthwise of said coupling car, which latter is indicated at 14 and only a fraction of which is shown in Figure 4.

The trough of the screw conveyor 13 is as shown in Figure 7 formed with a central slot at l5 extending longitudinally of the bottom thereof. Desirably a plate it closes the slot for a distance beyond the hopper 12. By virtue of the slot 15, the dirt from the conveyor will all escape at first adjacent the front end of the car 14. As the pile of dirt reaches the wall of the conveyor it will automatically form a closure for the slot causing the dirt to be delivered further along the trough until the whole car is filled.

To drive the said conveyor 13 there is shown a supplemental power plant H operating through shaft 18, Figure 3, and reducing gears 19, to drive bevel gear 39 and shaft 8| of the conveyor iii.

To drive the conveyor N there is shown a pulley '82 mounted upon shaft 83 driven by bevel gear 89 acting through a belt 84, to drive pulley 35 upon a stub shaft and bevel gears 86, 81, to drive the shaft of the conveyor H. Upon the last named shaft is mounted gear 88 meshing with the gear 89 upona shaft 95 extending parallel with conveyor 1 l, as shown in Figure 4, and operating through universal joints 9|, 92, to drive the shaft of the conveyor 13.

In operation the apparatus may be conveyed by a usual locomotive, if desired, to the field of work with conveyor I9 in retracted and elevated position. The excavator may be lowered and platform 2! moved transversely sothat the excavator nicely clears the ends of the ties whereupon the ballast may be cleaned and returned to the right of way, the dirt thus removed being automatically loaded upon the receiving car. Attendants may rake ballast from between the ties into the path of the conveyor as the car is moved upon the track from the power plant 35.

When the right of way must be cleared, the apparatus may be driven through its own power upon a siding or the latter may be done when it is desired to empty the car 14 which is desirably in the form of a dump car.

Minor changes may be made in the physical embodiment of the invention within the scope of the appended claims without departing from the spirit thereof.

I claim:

1. Railway ballast cleaning apparatus comprising, in combination; a railway car; a platform mounted on said car for movement transversely thereof; a power plant carried by said platform; an excavating and elevating conveyor pivotally mounted adjacent its central. portion on said platform; drive means for said conveyor actuated by said power plant and operated coaxially of said pivot; a transverse shaft mounted in bearings fixed on said car; means to drive said shaft from said power plant, a pulley feathered and slidable on said shaft; a shaking screen mounted on said car to receive excavated ballast to be cleaned from said conveyor; and means to actuate said screen from said shaft.

2. The combination of claim 1 with gear means to propel said car actuated from said shaft.

3. Railway ballast cleaning apparatus comprising, in combination; a railway car comprising a floor having an edge recess; a transversely movable platform carried by said floor; an excavating and elevating conveyor mounted on said platform, retractible into said recess and projectable therefrom to clear the ends of ties, by movement of said platform; power means carried by said platform to drive said conveyor; shaking screen ballast cleaning apparatus mounted on said car floor;

and drive means for said screen actuated from said power means. 7

4. Railway ballast cleaning apparatus comprising, in combination; a railway car comprising a floor having an edge recess; a transversely movable platform carried by said floor; an excavating and elevating conveyor mounted on said platform,

retractible into said recess and projectable there-,

from to clear the ends of ties, by movement of said platform; power means carried by said platform to drive said conveyor; shaking screen ballast cleaning apparatus mounted on said car floor; means to deliver clean ballast to the right of way; drive means for said screen actuated from said power means and means actuated from said power means to deliver material passing through said screen to an adjacent car.

5. A ballast cleaning apparatus comprising, in combination; a railway fiat car; transverse tracks mounted on the floor of said car; a wheeled platform movable on said tracks; a shaft mounted in bearings carried by said wheeled platform extending transversely of the car; a second shaft parallel with the first named shaft mounted in bearings carried by the car; a power plant mounted on said platform geared to drive said first named shaft; a bucket excavator and elevator geared to be driven by the first named shaft; a shaking screen apparatus driven by said second named shaft and a belt pulley feathered and slidable on the second named shaft driven from the first named shaft; said excavator-elevator delivering to said shaking screen.

6. A ballast cleaning apparatus comprising, in combination; a railway flat car; transverse tracks mounted on the floor of said car; a wheeled platform movable on said tracks; a shaft mounted in bearings carried by said wheeled platform extending transversely of the car; a second shaft parallel with the first named shaft mounted in bear- 'ings carried by the car; a power plant mounted shaft; a bucket excavator and elevator mounted adjacent its central portion to pivot about said stub shaft; chain and sprocket means to drive said excavator from said stub shaft; and manually operated means to adjust said excavator about its pivot.

'7. A ballast cleaning apparatus comprising, in

combination; a railway flat car; tracks carried thereby transversely thereof, a wheeled platform :mountedto travel on said tracks; manually operated means to cause movement of said platform;

driven by said power plant; a second transverse shaft parallel with the first named shaft mounted in bearings carried by the flat car; a belt pulley feathered and slidable on said second named shaft driven from the first named shaft; a crank driven by the second named shaft; a shaking screen apparatus driven by said crank; a bucket elevator and excavator mounted on said platform and movable therewith geared to be driven by the first named shaft; said elevator delivering to said shaking screen; and means to deliver cleaned ballast passing oversaid screen to the right-of-way in place of foul ballast excavated therefrom.

' CHARLES A. GILL. 

